Afghan Girl’s Torturers Get 10 Years Jail

The case of a tortured Afghan child bride whose treatment shocked the world has led to three members of her husband's family being jailed for 10 years, an official said on Saturday.

KABUL — The case of a tortured Afghan child bride whose treatment shocked the world has led to three members of her husband's family being jailed for 10 years, an official said on Saturday.

Sahar Gul, 15, who was burned and beaten and had her fingernails pulled out was found in the basement of her husband's house last December in northeastern Baghlan province, where she had been locked in a toilet for six months.

"The court sentenced her father-in-law, mother-in-law and sister-in-law each to 10 years in prison on Tuesday," Afghanistan's supreme court spokesman Abdul Wakil Omari told AFP.

A rights group, Women for Afghan Women which helped Gul in the court case, said it was not satisfied with the sentence.

"We are not happy with the sentence, we are going to help her appeal," programme manager Huma Safi told AFP.

"How can someone get only 10 years in prison for torturing a girl to almost death," she said.